The fight against environmental crime, as a modern security challenge, is imperative, it was announced at a meeting of the Ministers of Internal Affairs and Ecology, Sustainable Development and Development of the North, Danilo Šaranović and Damjan Ćulafić, and the Director of the Police Administration, Lazar Šćepanović.
The Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Northern Development (MERS) announced that Ćulafić discussed with Šaranović and Šćepanović the suppression of environmental crime as a new chapter in the work of the ministries responsible for the field of ecology and security in the country.
"Regular communication between the management of MERS, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Police Directorate was emphasized, as well as a focus on all forms of crime directed against the environment, especially those forms that have been relatively or completely unnoticed for a long time," the statement said.
The interlocutors stated that gravel exploitation, illegal and unscrupulous logging in northern Montenegro, theft in national parks, destruction of biodiversity, unscrupulous and unstatutory behavior, and corruption as a special form of eco-crime, produce incalculable negative consequences for the environment.
"Therefore, the fight against environmental crime is an imperative in our work," the interlocutors emphasized.
Šaranović, Ćulafić and Šćepanović emphasized the importance of the initiative of Deputy Prime Minister Aleksa Bečić to form an organizational unit within the Sector for Combating Crime, or a specialized team that will exclusively deal with the fight against environmental crime.
It was assessed that such a unit would improve the systemic response against the increasingly prominent modern security challenge, which causes enormous economic and immeasurable ecological damage to society and nature.
"At the end of the meeting, the need for intensive joint action by all forms of organizing state bodies was noted, as well as informing the public and actively involving the non-governmental sector, in order to devote full attention to this important topic," the statement said.
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